Chris Jordan: Visualizing the 2.4 million pieces of plastic that enter the world’s oceans every hour. “All of the plastic in this image was collected from the Pacific Ocean.”Close up of the dark area of the wave:
via MUG.
NPR reports:
More than twenty years ago, an international treaty known as the Montreal Protocol phased out a group of chemicals that were destroying the earth’s ozone layer.
But since then, scientists have discovered that that some of the chemicals developed to replace those destructive compounds might be contributing to another problem: global warming.
These new chemicals are known as HFCs, and they’re used as coolants in refrigerators. HFCs have largely replaced older refrigerants, such as CFCs. These replacements are non-flammable and don’t hurt the ozone.
But when it comes to global warming, HFCs aren’t so good, says Kert Davies of Greenpeace.
“We call them the super greenhouse gases,” Davies says. “They’re the global warming threat that no one has really heard about.”
[…]
By 2050, LaBudde says, the global warming from HFCs could cancel out all the reductions in CO2 likely to emerge from the United Nations climate talks that will take place in Copenhagen in December.
Create yarn from plastic bags! How to here.
So cool. Knitting is a surprisingly luxurious hobby because yarn is expensive. I’m so curious to see what a plastic bag scarf looks like (though I can’t imagine it would be particularly cozy).
Apple-Licensed iPod Solar Charger Case
Coming soon and … mildly useful. Maybe if you live in the south or work outdoors.
(Via texturism, biteofpythias & evangotlib.)
Cleaning some of the Fox off of Van Jones -
If you want to know what Jones thinks now, instead of what he thought in his early 20s, read his book: The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems. He’s out to save America’s free-market economy and get its people working. If the conservative movement were smart it would take yes for an answer and claim him as one if its own. But then, it’s not smart. It’s Beck.
If it’s not going to claim him, the right is correct to fear him, though. He has synthesized the best of environmentalism, progressivism, and capitalism into a program with appeal both broad and intense. It’s particularly notable among young people, but Jones gets acclaim from virtually everyone who’s met him or seen him speak. The more his kind of can-do, entrepreneurial, win-win green solutions spread, the more modern-day conservatives look like panicked, lumbering dinosaurs.
Link via azspot.
I’ve written a lot about this brilliant thinker and charismatic leader.
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“That’s more or less the premise of the “Eco Assist” dashboard features on the 2010 Honda Insight hybrid. Much the way many video games have heads-up displays that change color according to the condition of a character’s health; the Insight’s speedometer readout has a crescent icon that changes hue based on the driver’s acceleration/deceleration rate, glowing green when it’s most fuel efficient, but turning blue as it becomes wasteful. Like a role-playing game, the driver’s behavior is also tallied over time, and displayed symbolically — here, in the form of an ivy-ringed trophy achievement that a driver can gradually unlock with green-friendly driving. It’s sort of like Wii Fit, but for cars.” —
Upcoming Honda Insight Turns Eco-Friendly Driving Into Game (via @arainert, dpstyles & mattlehrer).
The coming electric cars might just be cool enough to make this NYC girl want to drive again.
Plastics in Ocean Decompose After All -
And that’s not good news. Islands of plastic waste floating in the oceans are filled with supposedly “indestructible” plastics that are decomposing quickly and releasing toxic substances into the water.
Last week, I had dinner with a woman who works for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden doing outreach to the borough’s growing number of home gardeners and community gardens (plots of land managed by a dedicated cadre of neighbors). She said that a lot of the education she does is about the potential dangers of Brooklyn soil. In many areas, there are high levels of certain toxins that can seep into produce. A lot of it is from the dust of the World Trade Center that settled over the city after 9/11.
The NYT reports that the Obamas’ kitchen garden was tested for lead and was found to have 93 parts per million.
The level is well below the 400 p.p.m. considered hazardous by the Environmental Protection Agency, though not below the more stringent goals recommended by some countries like the Netherlands, at 40 p.p.m.
Sam Kass, who has the totally awesome job of both White House assistant chef and garden overseer, has remediated the soil organically, adding “lime, green sand and crab meal as well as organic matter in the form of compost made by the National Park Service.”
If you have a garden, even a small backyard one, you should take advantage of a program offered by the EPA’s Cooperative Extension office in your area. Call (800) 424-5323 for more info.
